“I am, thanks. I reversed the charges, like the other call.”
“Great, so.”
Mrs McNamara smiled and entered the dining-room. Hoey stepped into the hallway after her. His look to the Inspector was an appeal to get him out of the clutches of Mrs McNamara.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Hoey. “Hit the road.”
“Sheila Howard is still in Ennis.”
Hoey frowned and blew smoke out the side of his mouth.
“I phoned their place in Dublin, talked to Dan Howard. He told me she decided at the last minute to stay and get the place fixed up. She had to farm out the two horses to be looked after while they’re away.”
“I want to see her on my own,” Minogue said.
Hoey tossed his packet of cigarettes into the air and caught it with a limp palm. “You’re going to ask her where she went during the time she left the pub,” he said. “Aren’t you?”
“Of course I am.”
Hoey looked at the frosted glass on the front door and threw the packet into the air again. He grasped it on its descent with a firm hand.
“You’re the boss.”
“Give me an hour, hour and a half. I’ll pick you up in front of here.”
Hoey nodded. He let a mouthful of air balloon his lips before he let it out with a soft pop. “You’re clear on what you want from her, right?”
“How many more times are you going to ask me?”
Hoey pursed his lips and nodded again, as if he were resigned to the score now that he had heard the final whistle.
“So I’ll meet you here outside the gate about eleven. Did you check to see if she’s in the house?”
“The phone’s still out from last night.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Minogue drove slowly. The fog seemed thicker outside town. Trees and houses materialised and then slipped back into the whiteness as he passed them. Fields were swallowed up a hundred feet beyond the roadside walls.
He could not see the Howards’ house from the gate. He stuffed the Fiat into a spot by the gates and turned off the engine. He was standing outside before he wondered what the hell he was parking there for. He shook his head at his own confusion. Was it a subconscious thing, not wishing to bring the poor Fiat back to the scene of its despoiling in front of the Howards’ house? Embarrassment at driving this wreck, full of uxorious litter? He unlocked the door and prepared to get in but then decided to leave the damn car where it was. Perhaps, he reflected as he locked the door again, it was vestigial caution after seeing the police cars and vans swarming around the gates the other night, wisely left outside until the Fiat had been probed for booby-traps. A walk up the avenue would give him another chance to clear his head anyway. He looked into the window of the Fiat, ran his comb over the top of his head and set off up the avenue.
The trees and bushes seemed to move as they came to him from the fog. The house appeared first as a darker patch, grey, then as the outlines of roof and corner. A Hiace van was parked by the steps.
C. Loughnane
Home Repairs, Restoration and Renovations
We’re Not Happy Until You Are.
He walked past the van. He saw no workmen about but a stepladder was next to the window. Minogue stood and studied the damaged plaster around the window opening. The frame was still attached and there were shards of glass in the flower bed below the window. He remembered the whacks as bullets hit the wall. He looked closer and detected the deeper points to the centres of the scooped-out gouges in the plaster. A breeze caught his coat and moved it across his legs. He shivered. Did Sheila Howard have her own car? The damp air seemed luminous now. Minogue’s eyes ached when he looked up at the sky. What approach would he use? Mrs Howard, I was just mulling over our chat and…
The steps seemed steeper. He grasped the brass doorknocker but the door moved slightly. He let down the knocker and pushed at the door with his fingertips. On the latch to let the workmen come and go? Maybe she had done what she had to do with the bloody horses, or whatever she had stayed for, and she was on the high road to Dublin already. Iijit. He saw his own bulbous face reflected onion-like on the doorknocker as he took his hand away. Better knock. He passed a hand over his hair. Something suggested to him that knocking or calling out here was vulgar, disturbing. He went for the knocker again and he heard a short cry from inside the house. His hand stopped inches from the knocker but his other hand pushed the door a few inches back into the hall. A radio announcer issued news indistinctly from somewhere in the house. An ad jingle started up.
“Go on,” he heard a man’s voice say. Taunting, urgent, whisper and hiss together. The Inspector put one foot on the threshold.
“Do it, can’t you?” said the man. “Like we do. Come on!”
“Leave me be,” Sheila Howard said. “I don’t want that. Not today.”
“Ah, Jesus, don’t be worrying!” The man’s voice rose. “You like it,” said the man, less pleading now. “Don’t play Lady Muck on me! I know how you like it. Tell me now. Go on, tell me!”
Minogue’s feet were leading him across the hall. His mind had gone away. The radio ad ended and a bubbly host announced a top hit from the charts while the music started up. The man’s voice had a warning tone to it now.
“Are you too good for me today, is it?”
Her voice strained and wavered as though she were exerting herself in some chore. “Not now,” she said. “Not here. I can’t.”
“Prince Charming ran away, so what are you fluttering on about?” He sounded breathless now. The words slowed as though he was concentrating on something else.
“He’s having his ride up there. It’s your turn. Come on.”
“Stop it Ciaran! Take the stuff and go. We’ll meet later on.”
“Give me a little souvenir, can’t you?” His voice fell to a low growclass="underline" Minogue heard a grunt.
“No,” she said.
Minogue’s stomach was tight now and his shoulders felt as though they were sinking down along his sides. He knew something, and he was losing a battle that he didn’t remember starting to fight. Better say something, he thought, but his hand pushed at the door anyway. The opening door fanned the scents to him and he knew he needn’t fight any longer. Along with those of sweat and the secret, scented clefts, he made out the musky smell. She saw him in the doorway but the man astride her kept pushing his hips into her. She stared at Minogue without fear or surprise. The Inspector himself felt no shock. Although he could not take his eyes from hers, he saw and understood all he needed to. Her blouse open, naked from the waist down with one of her legs lying on the arm of the sofa. Her jeans were on the floor by the coffee table and black knickers lay next to them. The man’s pants still clung to his ankles. He pushed faster, gasping, and began to mutter. Her eyes were flat and dull but they stayed on the Inspector. She began to move under her partner’s thrusts. Doesn’t she care at all, Minogue wondered? The man’s buttocks squeezed as he pushed hard into her.
“Now,” he hissed. “Tell me. You bitch! You fucking bitch!”
He grasped her neck and rose up over her. Her legs moved limply with every thrust he made. They were tanned, Minogue saw. Her eyes grew larger and turned to her partner. One side of her blouse fell away. Her breast shook as he began to buck.
“Tell me now,” he groaned, and looked down toward her belly. “Tell me, fuck you!”
Her eyes darted from her partner back to Minogue. The man’s head turned suddenly. A concentrated, brutal rapture contorted his face. His face was red. He kept his hands on her neck. Dark hair, strands of it hanging over his eyes. Hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. Late twenties. Ciaran. Minogue remembered the face: one of the two men who had lurched into the pub that night he and Crossan were trying to steady their nerves after the shooting.